


Recurring Dream (The Once and Future Waking Dream Remix)

by Tari_Sue



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M, Modern Era, Pre-Slash, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-26 22:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tari_Sue/pseuds/Tari_Sue
Summary: Three boys on holiday in Wales stumble upon an old ruined castle.





	Recurring Dream (The Once and Future Waking Dream Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Linorien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linorien/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Waking Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4738025) by [Linorien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linorien/pseuds/Linorien). 



> Linorien, you have some wonderful fics and I had a great time reading through them, but something about the otherworldly, dreamlike quality of _The Waking Dream_ just captured my heart. I have done a modern au, I like the idea that different versions of Merlin keep having this same dream, I hope it does not disappoint! 
> 
> Thank you to Camelittle for the beta, you are brilliant and wonderful as always!

“Come on, Merlin.” Arthur rolls his eyes and stretches his arm down to help heave Merlin up the wall. 

“I can do it!” Merlin ignores Arthur’s proffered hand and hoists himself up, raising his chin in triumph as he scales the wall with ease. Arthur always seems to think him incapable of doing pretty much anything, as opposed to the capable, brilliant and extremely dateable person Merlin wishes Arthur would see when he looks at him. 

“What about me?” A petulant voice calls from the bottom of the wall. “I’m smaller than you two, I can’t reach!”

Merlin sighs. He’s been doing his best to ignore his little brother tagging along the whole week. Every time he's tried to be on his own with Arthur, there's Mordred getting in the way. It’s miracle enough that Arthur, who only ever goes to fancy expensive holiday destinations, agreed to come on away to a caravan park in Wales with Merlin’s family, without having to put up with Mordred’s constant whining and sulking. 

Arthur, however, is clearly a nicer person than Merlin and he doesn't seem to mind the brat, or maybe it’s just that Mordred isn’t _his_ brother and he doesn’t have to put up with him and his tattling to mum on a daily basis. Arthur reaches down and pulls Mordred up the wall too while Merlin sighs again and shines his torch down into the darkness of the ruined castle.

This is so typical. He finally gets the chance to be alone with Arthur, and they are stuck babysitting Mordred. He’s off to Durham to start Uni in September, Arthur is going to Exeter, the other end of the country. They might completely lose touch, and his only chance to tell Arthur how he feels will be wasted. Merlin jumps off the wall, sending a small shower of broken stones down in his wake. They’d ignored all the ‘danger’ and ‘keep out’ signs around the castle, which resembled a dense thicket more than something man made. It’s taken them all morning to fight their way through the foliage to the castle itself and now they are here, there seems to be nothing but musty, dusty darkness, probably filled with giant spiders. 

There are twin thumps behind him as Arthur and Mordred land in the darkened room and they forge ahead together into the gloom as cobwebs cling to their hair and broken stones try to trip their feet.

“So, which way to find sleeping beauty?” Arthur asks. He’s been making the same stupid joke ever since Mordred got his t-shirt caught on a bramble bush half an hour ago and looked like he was going to go running back to tell Mum. Arthur succeeded in cheering the little toad up, but Merlin was bored of the joke almost immediately – Arthur is his, not Mordred's. 

Merlin has no idea of the history of the place, but he’s pretty sure there is no princess asleep upstairs. In fact, he’s pretty sure there are no floors left to make an upstairs, so if she ever was there she is somewhere in the dungeons now. He shines his torch down at the floor to make sure it doesn’t fall away further down the corridor they seem to be in.

Merlin can almost picture the people of old, living and working in these corridors, the building intact and bustling. They turn a corner and go through an ancient archway that is somehow still standing. All three boys stop and gasp.

They are standing in what can only be an ancient throne room, with a great dais raising up to two large stone chairs. If there were ever windows here they are long gone, the vegetation from outside long ago having found its way inside, blocking out any natural light. Yet there does seem to be an eerie luminescent glow emanating from somewhere he cannot pinpoint.

They cautiously make their way forward. Where in previous rooms and corridors the floors were of bare flagstones, here there are remnants of broken floor tiles everywhere. They make the ground treacherous underfoot and Merlin manages to trip on tiles and roots several times in the semi-gloom of the torchlight.

The dais itself seems almost untouched by time. When they first entered the room, Merlin had thought the seats were covered in moss and ivy, just like everything else, but on closer inspection, they look like majestic stone thrones that some ancient king and queen only vacated mere moments ago. The stonework has strange symbols carved into it; Merlin finds himself wanting to say they are druid symbols but he has no idea why.

“Hey, look at me, I’m the king of the castle!” Arthur calls out, throwing himself into the largest throne without a care for his own safety. He casually hooks one leg over the arm like he’s lounging about in his own home, Merlin almost expects Arthur’s dad to come in and tell him to sit up straight. Arthur pats the other throne and raises his eyebrows at Merlin.

“Why do you get to be the king and me the queen?” Merlin asks, folding his arms and frowning to hide the fact that he rather likes the suggestion that he is Arthur’s other half. Plus, if Arthur is king of the castle and Merlin his consort, then according to the nursery rhyme that makes Mordred the dirty old rascal, which suits Merlin’s current mood towards his little snitch of a brother quite well.

“Because you are a massive girl, Merlin.” Arthur rolls his eyes again, something he has taken to doing lately that Merlin privately thinks makes him look like a prat.

“My mum says you shouldn’t say things like that,” Mordred pipes up from the bottom of the dais. “You shouldn’t say mean things about girls, it’s doggatry.”

“Derogatory,” Merlin corrects him automatically. He really shouldn’t, Mordred hates it if he thinks Merlin is trying to make him look stupid, and if he is not careful Mordred will tell Mum where they’ve been today just to get him into trouble – he loves getting Merlin into trouble. “And he’s right, Arthur, stop being a chauvinist pig.” There, that should appease Mordred, and anyway, insulting Arthur is one of Merlin’s favourite pastimes.

Without thinking, he sits down next to Arthur and suddenly his vision seems to bend around time. The room is no longer crumbling, there is no greenery trying to break through. There are large stained glass windows letting light in and a large audience of people standing before the thrones cheering. A strange weight seems to rest on his brow. Reaching up, his hand meets cool metal like some sort of coronet, he longs to take it off, but somehow knows he must not. Glancing over at Arthur, a golden crown rests on his head and he seems somehow older – his face is less round, perhaps, his hair a tad shorter, his skin unblemished. 

Looking back down to where Mordred had been standing, he sees a young man with longish hair and pale blue eyes in place of his thirteen-year-old brother. The look on his handsome face, twisted with jealousy and resentment, almost blending into hatred, makes Merlin flinch back. 

Merlin blinks and shakes his head, standing up as he does so. And just like that, the people are gone and the room is thrown back into gloom, the only light coming from the weak beams of their three torches. Arthur is lounging on a moss-covered stone seat, back to looking like the slightly-spotty eighteen-year-old he is, his crown no longer visible. Mordred is standing at the bottom of the steps once more, giving Merlin a very strange look indeed. Did Mordred see what Merlin saw? Arthur clearly didn’t, as he is still rambling on about not being sexist. 

“We should head back to the caravan,” Merlin says. “Mum promised we could get fish and chips for dinner.”

Mordred’s sulky face lights up at the mention of chips and Merlin is reminded again of the look on the face of the man in his vision. Perhaps he should be nicer to Mordred. He knows his brother is lonely and it’s not his fault he was born and disrupted Merlin’s perfect world, or that he wants to tag along with the two older boys on this holiday. He reaches out and ruffles his brother’s hair. “Come on shrimp, we’re supposed to be on holiday, let’s enjoy ourselves.”

They head back out into the sunshine, laughing and joking about being knights of the round table. Arthur takes Merlin’s hand as they fight back through the undergrowth, claiming it is to stop Merlin falling over. However, he doesn’t let go once they are back out on the main path.

Not a single one of them looks back as they leave the ruined castle behind, and it becomes shrouded once again in the waiting silence of time.


End file.
